OOo: Quality Through Obsolescence?
Michael Meeks (from an interview) on what many of us have seen for a long time as serious problems within OpenOffice.org:
I would stress that there are people inside Sun that do ‘get it’. People that are open, and helpful, and really good. But there are also a large number who are very traditional, very staid people, particularly in quality assurance. You can’t argue with them, because they’re in their own self-reinforcing world view. They say specifications are necessary for product quality, and you say “That’s fine, but look at the quality. It’s still not very good.” They say more specifications are necessary! The answer is always more of the same, and you can’t argue with that. It leads to obsolescence - quality through obsolescence, is what I like to call it.
Michael notes a lot of progress on the OOo organizational front of late, such as the move to more frequent releases. But clearly the deeper organizational dynfucntions are really, seriously, weighing on the capacity for OOo to innovate. I really hope they don’t slow down implementation of the new metadata support in ODF 1.2. It really has the potential to be a killer innovation opportunity for OOo, but not if it gets delayed for five years by business as usual.
I’m cautiously optimistic, though.
